Harvest Begins September 10, 2017

The Field Report

With the central Illinois prairie covered with snow, Trent sat down in his warm office to look back and ahead. 2018 “was a decent year, but not a record-breaker. We had good weather and good production, but the markets were not friendly.” Trent continued by observing that the federal government shutdown has stopped USDA crop reports so the markets have no current information about final yield figures, export sales, status of various inventories, and similar information which ordinarily moves the market. Without the current reports, the markets are in a holding pattern, unsure of direction.

Trent Brandenburg expects to begin picking corn on September 10, depending on the weather. Recent rains have helped his soybean pod fill, “but we could use some more,” he added hopefully, but then admitting that the next rain might be too late, as the pods are “beginning to turn.”

Trent believes his early-planted corn and soybeans will provide better yields. Some of his ponded-area replants are definitely lagging. Asked to estimate yields compared to last year, Trent pointed out that the last two years made very heavy yields. He felt that a better comparison would be to the past five-years’ average. In that comparison, this year’s crops would be above that average but not by much.